Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

55 Red

Bucky felt everything in slow motion and felt all the pain magnified as the bullet tore through his chest and lodged there and he hit the ground hard on his left and he could see the sparks and the metal tear up against the pavement. Pieces of his ripped prosthetic tore at him through his shirt as he collapsed and he could only half-way move it and there was so much blood, it was gushing out of his chest and he couldn’t breathe suddenly. His jaw had ground together when he’d hit the ground, he could taste blood and he thought he’d cracked one of his teeth, maybe broken a rib in the fall, and there was so much blood, it was in a puddle over everything. He could hear screaming and Sharon knelt over him and he looked up at her was suddenly scared what she’d do to him as the pain was beginning to steal his consciousness from him. He wanted Natalia, or Steve, but it was Sharon there, with blood in her hair, and he saw her face, scared, and then he felt the heels of her palms over the gunshot wound in his chest and when she began to press, the pain burst like light and he dissolved into it, screaming until he couldn’t see anymore.

Earlier that day, before the gunshot and before Bucky’s screaming, the Avengers had been called to another fight. Steve stayed in bed at home, battered on the inside and the outside and fast asleep, because Bucky insisted he not even be disturbed.

“I can go in his stead,” Bucky said to Fury over the speakerphone. “I’ll do it for him.” However, as expected, he had been furiously denied by Natalia, who insisted he not see any action he didn’t have to. So Natalia and Clint went out go defend Earth alone and Bucky anxiously paced until he couldn’t anxiously pace any more and then he followed them, wrapping himself up in his winter coat and hood and strapping his sniper rifle to his back.

The events aforementioned, however, took place when Sharon joined the fight. Upon hearing about the desperation, she had called Fury and ran out to take Steve’s place, knives in her sleeves and guns holstered to her waist because Sharon was a field agent and she may not work for SHIELD anymore, but she could still put up a fight and she could tell when people needed her help. She would take Steve’s place

Bucky watched her join from the high window of a building where he was covering Natalia’s back, letting himself sink back down to that place he hated and trying to make use of the skills that had damned him. He watched Sharon and soon found himself covering her too. And she was good, he learned, great, even. Of course, she wasn’t Natalia, but she could hold her own, and the Winter Soldier watched her with admiration and surprise as she stood back to back with two Avengers and fought valiantly.

She backed herself up near his window, just a floor underneath him, and the Winter Soldier took the risk of giving away his position to lean down and watch her. And these are the events that transpired.

The Winter Soldier saw from the right side, an attacker that Sharon Carter didn’t see. He tried to yell, and she only looked up, confused. He tried to shoot down the attacker, but it was too late, and there was a bullet heading straight for Sharon and so the Winter Soldier did the one thing at that point that he could do. He dropped his rifle and climbed up on the window sill and dove down, one fluid, instinctual motion, screaming at Sharon to move, and when, stunned, she didn’t, he landed on her and shoved her out of the way as best as he could. WHAM-there was the bullet and Bucky skidded to the ground, the pavement peeling up the paint and the plates on his arm until they were jagged edges of metal to stab him and he could feel the bullet go in and sink and stop and when Sharon put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding, looking around, screaming now for help, she turned back to find Bucky Barnes blacked out under her hands, and red coming up through her fingers.